


Companions that weren't (but still could be)

by horologiums_time



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multi, mike is Gay and has a crush on benton and those are the facts, morton is clueless as always, tags will be added as more chapters are posted, the doctor picked up different companions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-06-22 15:50:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15585324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horologiums_time/pseuds/horologiums_time
Summary: Perhaps it was a bad idea to let these people on board the TARDIS, the Doctor mused.Collection of au oneshots of varying lengths where the Doctor picked up different side characters as companions





	1. Morton

**Author's Note:**

> there are a lot of side characters that could have made good companions trust me i'm a dr who expert

Wherever he was, it was probably the best darn movie set he’s ever been on — actually, the only one he’s ever been on, but none could possibly top _this_ one.

“Land sakes,” he breathed, spinning around in the white room, “This is some set you folks got here!”

The old man glared from his position at the hexagonal console in the center of the room. “This is no set, sir; this is my TARDIS,” he said sharply, “that _you_ have no right to be in!”

“TARDIS?” Morton asked, not taking his eyes off the roundels and doors and switches, “What’s that, some kinda fancy effect?”

“You could say that,” the young man said, standing beside the young woman. Or his wife, Morton didn’t know. They _were_ rather close. “If it makes it any easier for you.”

“Easier?” Morton parroted. He finally had turned his attention to the group of four near the console. They all exchanged looks, the older man’s more annoyed than anything, before the young girl spoke up,

“This may be a bit hard to believe, but you’re in a time and space machine,” she said. Morton stared at her for a second, before guffawing.

“Time and space machine? Y’all are killin’ me here! What other kinda stuff do you guys got up yer sleeves?”

The young man and young woman shared a knowing smile between themselves. “It may be ridiculous, Mr Dill; Ian and I believed it was impossible, too,” the woman said, “But I assure you, this is real.”

“Yer jus’ pullin’ my leg,” Morton said, “You Hollywood people always are. Fancy effects and all that…” He peered around the room, quietly murmuring to himself, “Now, where do ya get out of this set?”

“There is no way out — the TARDIS is already in flight, and we can not afford to waste any more time,” the old man said, focusing intently on the numerous controls in front of him. “The Daleks have gotten closer.”

“They have?” the young man exclaimed, and Morton wondered what exactly a ‘Dalek’ was. Judging by the alarmed looks of the group, it wasn’t good. Were they talking about their director?

The old man gestured to the woman and the man, whispered something under his breath that Morton did not catch, and turned to the girl as the duo left the room and disappeared beyond a door.

“Will you get my screwdriver, child?” he asked, settling himself down in a rather old fashioned chair by the console. “The large one — the one that I fiddled with on the visualiser…”

The girl nodded, “Okay,” but only took a few steps before the man and the woman stumbled in with a large box with a strange contraption on top of it. They carefully lowered it in front of the old man, who gleefully pulled himself up to it.

“This gonna work, Doctor?” the man asked.

“Maybe,” was the reply as the old man studied the contraption with a monocle, “I’m not sure. If they’re going to catch us up, we’ve got to find something to fight back with.”

“Look, Doctor,” the woman said, “why don’t we just stay where we are?”

“Out of the question, my dear,” the Doctor sharply replied. “Vacuum of space — we shall all be dead in no time.”

Morton blinked as the girl came back into the room, screwdriver in hand; he hadn’t noticed that she had even left in the first place. Instead, he had been focusing on the weird and frankly concerning conversation that was going on at the moment.

“Here you are,” she said, holding out the screwdriver. The Doctor took it gratefully.

“Ah, thank you,” he said, and returned his attention to the odd contraption.

The girl sided up to the old man. “What’s this all about?”

“Well, the idea is, my dear, is to find something to fight back with,” the Doctor explained. He prodded the machine with the screwdriver.

“Doctor,” the woman suddenly called out, “we’re landing!”

“Hmm?” The Doctor jumped to his feet, “But I’m not ready — we can’t beat them now!”

He reached across the console, flicking a few switches and pressing buttons. “Oh, gracious!” The Doctor continued to work hurriedly. “No, wait a minute,” he said, “we shall have to land, and then...take off as quickly as we can again.”

The Doctor twisted a dial and pressed down a button. His actions were punctuated by a loud _thunk_ , and the others made their way to a pair of heavy doors. The doors opened with a mechanical whirring, and Morton could see some kind of wooden structure beyond them, not the net that had covered the Empire State Building.

“Now, how’d you go and do that?” he asked the old man, “I-I swear we were just on the Empire State Buildin’, right?”

“I’m afraid we aren’t anymore, Mr Dill,” the young woman said. She stepped out of the room closely followed by the man, leaving the girl and the Doctor.

“Whaddya mean, not anymore?” Morton frowned. How _did_ they do it? These were probably the best Hollywood people he’s ever met; they’ve managed to do the impossible without blinking.

“The TARDIS took off from New York, and landed us here,” the girl said simply, and she left, passing the man — who had all but stumbled back in — on her way out. The man unsteadily made his way to the chair in the room. He was ashen, and a look of nausea filled his face. It was then Morton realized the room was swaying a bit under his feet, bobbing up and down as if it was a ship in the sea. 

Standing at the console, the Doctor was looking over the controls with a practiced eye.

“Well,” the Doctor said, addressing the seasick man behind him, “everything seems to be in order, my boy.”

“Oh,” the man said with a strained voice, “we haven’t done very...” Morton couldn’t make out what the man was saying, his words jumbling together. “…Let’s face it; first of all, we land on top of a skyscraper — and kidnap a tourist, too, not to mention; now, we land on a crummy old ship. What we need is space!”

“Hmm, indeed, indeed,” the Doctor agreed into the handkerchief he had against his mouth. Perhaps to muffle the odd bout of chuckles the old man had at the moment, Morton thought. “Well, we’re ready to move on,” He turned to the man, “Now, will you, eh, tell the ladies that I want to get away, please?” 

“Yes,” the man groaned, easing himself out of his chair. “Barbara’s got a case of Call-of-the-Sea!”

“Hmm, sorry about that,” the Doctor said distractedly, and he continued his work on the controls.

The man made his way out of the room, trying his best to keep his balance because apparently they were on an actual ship in the middle of the sea. A few moments later, the group of three stumbled back into the set, all but dragging the man between them, and they were off.

The rest of the day went by in a blur for Morton. They traveled to a place filled with what looked like haunted house props to the man, accidentally leaving behind the girl (Vicki, Morton had learned from the distraught group), and finally ending up in an odd jungle filled with giant mushrooms. At least he had finally learned just what a Dalek was — not the director, but weird robots that glided around and looked like salt shakers.

The Doctor, turning away from the central console after they stared at the mushrooms on the scanner for a minute, told him to stay in the TARDIS, citing that he “already had too many people to worry about”. He then left with Ian and Barbara in tow to find Vicki, and closed the doors behind him. It was all right with Morton, oddly enough; after all, he didn’t want to get in the way of their production and he was curious to see the rest of what the TARDIS had to offer. So he simply explored the set, walking down the winding hallways. 

His head was beginning to spin with just how long some of the halls were, and the dozens of doors lining them. A few of them had names on them; he opened a door labeled _Ian Chesterton_ , the young man of the group, revealing a cozy bedroom. At the far left wall, there was a desk, with neatly stacked papers and a few glass tubes held in a rack near the back edge of the table. A small radio laid beside a picture of Ian, Barbara, and the Doctor, along with a young girl he was certain wasn’t Vicki, held in a simple black picture frame. They were all smiling and hugging and were dressed in old-style clothing, the girl with a ridiculous hat perched on her head. They looked like his family, and Morton wondered what had happened to the dark haired girl.

Realizing that it was a rather private matter he was poking around in, Morton quickly backed out of the room and shut the door. He pressed further down the hallway, passing by one other labeled door ( _‘Who’s Susan?’_ he had wondered to himself after reading the name) that he wisely decided against entering. He found a door without any writing, and opened it, and inside was a similarly styled bedroom, only more plain and bare. It was a lot nicer than his room in his house, but why did a set have fully furnished bedrooms in the first place anyways? There was a sense of unreality that settled on Morton — was it really a set, or something else entirely?

His head swam. The excitement of the day was starting to get to him rather rapidly. He eyed the white bed. A little nap wouldn’t hurt. Removing his hat and shoes, Morton flopped down onto the bed with a contented sigh, and he was asleep in seconds.

Noises from outside his room roused him from his sleep, and he bolted up from the bed. How long did he sleep? What time was it even? Scrambling quickly, he slipped his feet into his shoes and grabbed his hat. He didn’t want to get caught sleeping on the set! He wasn’t sure if he was even _supposed_ to be in it.

As he found his way back to the control room (no short feat for him), a coat suddenly filled his vision, and he stumbled and fell in surprise.

“Wait, Doctor!” he heard Vicki’s voice exclaim, and the coat was pulled off of him. “It’s the man we met in New York!”

“So it is,” the Doctor said, none too pleased. “Young man, I’d nearly forgotten about you.”

Morton, evidently embarrassed for falling down on his behind, accepted Vicki’s outstretched hand, and pulled himself up.

The man blinked blearily, noticing they were the only three there. “Where’d the other two go?” he asked, craning his neck around them to find the couple who had been with the duo before him.

Vicki looked down. “They left. They had a chance to get back home, and they took it.”

“They quit?” Morton furrowed his brow. Who would want to leave a set like this? The Doctor lifted an eyebrow as his wording, but nonetheless nodded.

Vicki peered at him. “Hey,” she said, tugging the Doctor’s arm, “he looks a lot like that Steven guy we met, only without the beard.”

“Steven? Who’s he?” Morton asked. “What’d y’all even _do_ out there?”

“Just a man we had met; a prisoner of this planet,” the Doctor answered. “He was with us when we escaped, but went back into the prison to get something. I doubt that he is still alive out there.”

“I wish he had come with us,” Vicki said solemnly. The Doctor pulled her close and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He still, however, had his attention on Morton.

“Now, young man,” he began, haughty, “what are we to do with you? I doubt you’d like to stay here on this planet, hmm?”

“I…well...” Morton said, unsure of what to say. After what the Doctor had just described of the man’s — Steven’s — apparent demise on the ‘planet’ (seriously, what happened?), he didn’t want to leave the TARDIS set despite being an uninvited stranger. He was saved by Vicki, who suddenly and excitedly spoke up.

“How about he travels with us, Doctor?” she asked the old man beside her.

The Doctor blinked in momentary surprise, before frowning. “No,” he said sharply, “we’ve had enough trouble with him stumbling into my TARDIS and bumbling around.”

“Oh, please Doctor!” Vicki begged, “I don’t think you’ll be able to return him to his own time, and you can’t leave him just anywhere. Let him come with us!”

Morton subconsciously straightened at the Doctor’s critical eye, his hands ringing his hat anxiously. After for what seemed like eternity, the Doctor finally nodded, albeit reluctantly.

“Very well,” he said with finality, “he shall stay.”

Vicki clapped excitedly, and the Doctor looked resigned, but not as annoyed as he was before. The old man laid a hand on Morton’s arm, patting it. Morton stared dumbly at the Doctor’s stern face despite his light touch.

“Now that we’ve settled that matter,” he said, “what is your name, young man? I don’t believe I caught it the first time we met.”

“Uh — Morton,” the man stammered. “Morton Dill.”

“Morton,” the Doctor repeated, more to himself, before shuffling off towards the console room. Morton followed despite himself, but was pulled away by Vicki to the other side of the console, out of the way of the old man.

The room made the telltale _thunk_ as the TARDIS landed. Morton still didn’t believe that they were actually traveling anywhere; only that the sets were extremely complicated and realistic, and the group he had met were good actors — right?

Vicki slung a cloak around Morton’s shoulders, fastening her own as well. The set’s doors opened, revealing an expansive ocean beyond a rock face. Slowly, Morton stepped out with Vicki. The air smelled of salt, and the wind felt too real to be of any ordinary set. Straining his neck, Morton couldn’t find any lights or fans or cameras — anything that could give away the impossible implications. _They must be hidden_ , he concluded, but even then it was beginning to be difficult to believe that.

“Ho boy,” Morton muttered under his breath, and firmly jammed his hat on his head. Vicki dragged him away from the blue box, and they were on their way.


	2. Brigadier, Jo, Benton and Mike

“Really, it’s not as bad as you would think…” the Doctor began.

Mike stared at the intricate lines that swirled around on the palm of his left hand, the rather nice soft red contrasting with his pale skin. And, if he were to look a few feet beside him, he would have seen Benton doing the same with his right hand. The captain squeezed his hand into a fist.

“I just got married,” said Mike. He couldn’t help but blush at the fact. “and you’re telling me not to worry about it?”

“Accidentally,” Jo added, as if it would change anything. “You two were accidentally married. It was only a slight mistake.”

“Slight mistake,” Mike’s voice rose an octave. “Slight mistake — no, putting salt instead of sugar in your tea is a slight mistake. Getting married is not a slight mistake at all; it’s a rather large one, I should think!”

The Doctor laid a hand on Mike’s shoulder. “Do relax, Mike; it’s only legally binding in this solar system — which, mind you, is nowhere close to Earth at all. When you get back home, you and Benton technically won’t be married anymore, and you can be on your merry way.”

There was something about the word ‘married’ that made Mike’s stomach do flips. He was _married_ — to Benton no less! He looked at his palm again, and thought about scrubbing at the lines to make them disappear because for the love of God he doesn’t want people to see-

“Er, will the lines fade, Doc?” Benton asked, seemingly reading Mike’s thoughts. The Doctor smiled and chuckled. Chuckled!

“Of course, Benton,” the Doctor said. “The lines will go away eventually; they’re not at all permanent. But it’s rather rude to remove them when you’re a newly wed, so I wouldn’t go about doing so yet. It’s a traditional ritual here, you know.”

Mike sagged in relief. “Thank God. You think we can get going back to the TARDIS then, Doctor?”

“What, and miss the after party?” The Doctor’s eyes twinkled. “You two are the guests of honor, after all.”

“I hear the parties here are amazing,” Jo said. “I’m sure it won’t hurt to stay for a bit. See, even the Brigadier is in on the festivities.”

Mike turned and found the Brigadier scouring the drinks table. There was a spike of jealousy that struck him as he watched, and found himself longing to forget the entire embarrassing ordeal — the Brigadier seemed to be doing just that at the moment with the drinks he was choosing.

The Doctor gave them both a clap on the shoulder, and Jo subsequently followed with a kiss on a cheek. They both turned heel, arm in arm, to God knows where. Too soon, Mike and Benton were left to themselves amongst the guests who had attended their ‘wedding’. Mike subconsciously found himself moving closer to Benton, to be by a familiar face, even despite desperately trying to avoid being any closer than five feet to him at the moment; he liked Benton, yes, but he wasn't about to show it. He nearly jumped out of his skin when Benton suddenly grabbed his hand and pulled him close so that his shoulder touched the sergeant’s.

“People are staring, sir,” Benton murmured under his breath, his mouth so close to Mike’s face he thought that the tall man was about to kiss him to further sell the facade.

As Benton had pointed out, people _were_ staring with almost scandalized looks, which had then been replaced with expressions ranging from delight to suspicious now that he and Benton were holding hands together. There were even some sly looks when some of the guests saw the blushes on both of their faces, interpreting them as something Mike didn’t wish to think about at the moment. Soon enough, a few guests began to make their way up to the two.

They stood there for a few minutes, trapped, awkwardly chatting and taking compliments and blessings from various guests. Bundles of iridescent flowers were pressed into their open hands as small gifts, and Mike nearly dropped a few as he struggled to hold them all.

Mike felt a tug on his hand from Benton. Turning, he saw Benton motion at the drinks table with his head. The captain smiled at the unspoken invitation: ‘Drinks?’. Almost too quickly, he nodded. A few drinks wouldn’t hurt — not at this moment, Mike decided.

A thought went through Mike’s head as the duo made their way to the table. It was a terrible shame, really, that the marriage was only legal in the solar system they had landed in; he wouldn’t have minded being still married to Benton-

Mike blushed and shook his head to get rid of the rather self-indulgent thought. He wasn’t sure that Benton liked being married to him. He did look uncomfortable at the ceremony — but then, everyone did, even the Doctor, so maybe…

Wishful thinking, Mike chalked it up to be. He ignored the pang of disappointment in his heart. Only wishful thinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> psst i have no idea how to write people with crushes


	3. Isobel

“Would you mind holding that pose, Zoe? Thank you,” There was a flash from a camera, and Jamie nearly groaned aloud; instead, he settled on running a hand down his face with some effort to make it look like he was only wiping off sweat.

Zoe didn’t look too put out, but she didn’t look too pleased either. “While I’m happy that you’re doing what you enjoy, Isobel...it would be much better if you were to do it when we’re not in the middle of trying to save a civilisation.” 

A half-disassembled computer laid beside them with wires trailing from a large bomb — a few strands draped over Zoe’s shoulders with Jamie holding some as well in a fist. In the back, they could hear several guards attempting to get into the room, slamming against the heavy pair of doors. The doors may have been made of steel and several inches thick, but it wouldn’t be long until they manage to get in with some form of weapon or tool.

“Only a few more,” Isobel said, if a bit distractedly. She snapped another picture. “I’ve found that world saving always makes for the best pictures. Now, hold your arm right there, Zoe…”


End file.
